Many different kinds of food loaves are produced; they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. There are meat loaves made from various different meats, including ham, pork, beef, lamb, turkey, fish, and even meats not usually mentioned. The meat in the food loaf may be in large pieces or may be thoroughly comminuted. These meat loaves come in different shapes (round, square, rectangular, oval, etc.) and in different lengths up to four feet (122 cm) or even longer. The cross-sectional sizes of the loaves are quite different; the maximum transverse dimension may be as small as 1.5 inches (4 cm) or as large as ten inches (25.4 cm). Loaves of cheese or other foods come in the same great ranges as to composition, shape, length, and transverse size.
Many of these food loaves meet a common fate; they are sliced, the slices are grouped in accordance with a particular weight requirement, and the groups of slices are packaged and sold at retail. The number of slices in a group may vary, depending on the size and consistency of the food loaf and even on the whim of the producer, the wholesaler, or the retailer. For some products, neatly aligned stacked slice groups are preferred. For others, the groups should be shingled so that a purchaser can see a part of every slice through a transparent package. And when it comes to bacon or other food products of variable shape, the problems do not just increase; they literally multiply.
A variety of different known slicing machines have been used to slice food loaves. They range from small, manually fed slicers used in butcher shops and in retail establishments to large, high speed slicers usually employed in meat processing plants. The present invention is directed to a high speed slicing machine used in a meat processing plant.
Some known high speed food loaf slicing machines have provided for slicing two food loaves simultaneously with a single, cyclically driven knife blade. Other prior high speed slicing machines, including that shown in S. Lindee et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,263, have sliced one loaf at a time, but could be expanded to slice two or more loaves simultaneously. But none of the prior high speed slicing machines have had the versatility needed to slice food loaves of the many different sizes and shapes referred to above, particularly with provision for either stacking or shingling of the sliced output, variations in slice thickness and slice count from two different loaves, and precision control of the weight of slice groups.